Two Planks and a Passion Theatre creates a magical, unforgettable experience with its fireside shows as people sit encircling actors who themselves encircle a roaring fire.
The flames are the only source of light and as you look into the orange flickering shadows your imagination is lit by a timeless story. The occasional flitting bat adds to the magic.
Chased by The Bear, a spellbinding musical re-telling of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale with high comedy, high tragedy, wonderful music, a stellar team and great imagination, closed this weekend with a sellout in its final shows.
Here’s hoping this 90-minute drama, told around a blazing fire in a clearing at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, near Canning, comes to life again!
However, there is still time to experience theatre on the magnificent, mountaintop property at Ross Creek Centre for the Arts this week with the company’s third summer production: shalan joudry’s KOQM, presented by the Nestuita’si Storytelling production, and running August 13 to 17, 6 p.m., with a 2 p.m. show Aug. 17.
KOQM stars joudry in a journey through time as she becomes five fictional L’nu (Mi’kmaw) women, all connected to one piece of forest belonging to the Mi’kmaq and holding an ancient tree (koqm) which gives strength to the historical women and a present-day woman as they tell stories of loss, humour and resilience. This play, deeply rooted in the Mi’kmaw experience in Nova Scotia, includes story-telling, poetry, dance and song.
The original production, on Neptune’s main stage, was nominated for the Merritt Award for Outstanding Production in 2023; joudry also won the award for Outstanding New Play.
Chased By The Bear mini-review:
With Chased By The Bear, featuring a terrific, talented and fun-loving cast, Two Planks and a Passion artistic director Ken Schwartz and composer Allen Cole brought their award-winning collaborative magic again to bear on one of Shakespeare’s late romances, a play sometimes considered problematic with its first three acts of psychological drama and the last two of comedy and youthful love.
There is no problem in this production. Schwartz and Cole run with the two differing emotions and diverging dramatic directions staying true to both pure tragic, operatic emotion and to all the joy and giggles in exaggerated comedy with some wonderful whimsy. Two examples and highlights are: a chorus of three actors dressed as sheep singing in baas to two cavorting lovers, and Ryan Rogerson, as Father Time, in an opulent, gold, Italianate, cowboy getup, galloping about in front of the fire in an unforgettable piece of comedy as he explains that time has passed – as it always does – by 20 years in this case.
Also unforgettable is Kih Becke as Hermione, the wronged wife of Leontes, ruler of Sicilia. The firelight bathes her cheek as she beautifully and emotively sings the impassioned songs of anger and sadness. The scene of her as a ghost “naming” her baby girl – at that moment being dropped off in a bear-infested wasteland by Antigonus (Omar Alex Khan) – is tender enough to bring tears.
Chased by the Bear is a familiar, free-wheeling Shakespearean story of love and loss, a fatal flaw, mistaken identity and fantasy. Cole frames it musically by the idea of love as supreme and eternal with a shimmering, timeless opening song that repeats at the end – haunting in the darkness.
Cole wrote the music and co-wrote the lyrics with Schwartz. He has outdone himself with a life-affirming score of music that is — by turns — playful and soulful and includes nods to early rock and roll, musical theatre, ballads, hillbilly and country.
The drama is a wonderful mishmash and, as directed by Ken Schwartz, with exquisite musical direction by Cole, it all works swimmingly. Clearly, the cast is having great fun and audiences are too. Apart from the fun in Chased by the Bear, the story has a universal relevance as an unreasonable tyrant demands people make difficult decisions based on their conscience. Thematic messages include: “love is all” and “always listen to the Oracle.”
The cast also features Burgandy Code, Mary Fay Coady, Alex Furber, Ailsa Galbreath, Henricus Gielis, Becca Guilderson, Chris O’Neill, Hugh Ritchie and Sam Vigneault.
Actors sit on a fixed stage as lively band members, like merry minstrels, and then step into the action. The musical talent in this cast as singers and instrumentalists is amazing.
Whereas costume designer Diego Cavedon Dias designed period costumes for The Mountain and the Valley, his costumes for Chased by the Bear are opulent, elaborate fanciful garments wonderfully regal for the king and queen, appropriate to servants and shepherdesses and Italianate. Robin Munro is in her ninth season as stage manager and Laurie Fleet in her third as apprentice stage manager.
-30- (to use a beloved old newspaper term now that newspapers are in a death spiral.)
While Two Planks’ premiere production, with HomeFirst Theatre, of The Mountain and the Valley by Catherine Banks, closes today, there are other big summer theatre productions still running in the province:
The Company Store at Theatre Baddeck to Aug. 28, Mary Vingoe’s adaptation of Sheldon Currie’s tale of love, loss and loyalty in a 1950’s Cape Breton coal mining community (Theatre Baddeck | The Company Store), Natasha MacLellan directs Karen Bassett, Theofani Pitsiavas, Alex Fullerton, Sharisse LeBrun and Todd Hiscock.
Norm Foster’s The Great Kooshog Lake Hollis McCauley Fishing Derby, at Festival Antigonish (festivalantigonish.ca) in the Bauer Theatre to Aug. 24, is the story of an investment banker whose car breaks down near the sleepy town of Kooshog Lake and he finds himself unwittingly tangled up in a highly competitive fishing derby. Artistic director Andrea Boyd directs Antigonish originals Mary-Colin Chisholm and Allister MacDonald, with Anat Kriger, Stephanie MacDonald and veteran audience favourite Wally MacKinnon. The play comes with a warning: “Fishing stories will be told… some true. “
Chester Playhouse is back in action this with music and theatre including A Song for Hephaestus, Aug. 24 and 25, Forged in Fable’s Greek-based folk-opera with a contemporary relevance combining shadow puppetry, intricate vocal harmonies, drama and comedy. (What’s On – Chester Playhouse)
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